Qualla: Donaghadee Lifeboat Station

Donaghadee Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. On January 31, 1953, the British Railways car ferry MV Princess Victoria sailed from Stranraer toward Larne in a force-ten gale. 176 people were on board. The seas hammered the ship's stern car-deck doors until they gave way, and the vehicle deck flooded. By late afternoon she had foundered seven miles east of Belfast Lough. 135 people drowned. The lifeboat from Donaghadee, under Coxswain Hugh Nelson, was one of three RNLI crews launched in response. By the time the Donaghadee boat returned to harbour, it had picked up survivors from life rafts and scattered wreckage - 33 of the 44 people who survived that day. Hugh Nelson received the RNLI Bronze Medal. He later received the Medal of the Order of the British Empire.

Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Donaghadee Lifeboat Station: A 7,500-Pound Bequest

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ardfern, CC BY-SA 3.0. The station's origin lies with a single donor. In 1907, the RNLI received a bequest of 7,571 pounds, 18 shillings and seven pence from the estate of the late Mrs A. W. Clarke Hall, who had specified that a lifeboat be provided for the north coast of Ireland and named William and ...

Image: Ardfern | CC BY-SA 3.0

Donaghadee Lifeboat Station: The Coxswain Who Drowned Fishing

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Postcards, Public domain. Lifeboat coxswains spent their working lives at sea, and Donaghadee's records carry a quietly devastating note from 1917: Coxswain William G. Nelson drowned in a fishing accident. He had survived years of lifeboat callouts in the worst weather the Irish Sea could produce, only to...

Image: Postcards | Public domain

Donaghadee Lifeboat Station: The Sir Samuel Kelly and the MV Douglas

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ardfern, CC BY-SA 3.0. On August 17, 1950, Donaghadee's third lifeboat was named in a ceremony at the harbour. The Sir Samuel Kelly (ON 885) was the gift of Lady Mary Kelly of Crawfordsburn, County Down, in memory of her husband, a coal merchant and philanthropist. Six years later, on July 17, 1956, th...

Image: Ardfern | CC BY-SA 3.0

Donaghadee Lifeboat Station: Seven Minutes from Pager to Sea

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. At 02:15 on September 13, 2009, the crew of the lifeboat Saxon (ON 1267) were woken by their pagers. A yacht called Bentim Buoys with three elderly crew members aboard had run aground on the rocks near Ballywalter. The Saxon was launched in seven minutes from pager to slipway - a...

Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0